Merger Madness
by Wayne E. Shevlin
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From the Editor: In recent years legislatures and governors
in state after state have decided that multiplying the layers of
bureaucracy thereby creating huge agencies will increase
efficiency in delivering rehabilitation services while at the
same time saving money. They argue that lumping accounting and
other administrative services together will automatically and
inevitably provide economy of scale. Sometimes they even argue
that counselors, who after all know everything about
rehabilitation, can be more efficient if they deal with a number
of different disabilities in a small geographic area rather than
specializing in one or a very few disabilities and traveling some
distance to cover the case load.

But anyone who has ever tried to make his or her perplexed
way through layers of the rehabilitation bureaucratic maze knows
that such arguments benefit no one but the empire builders at the
very top, where power and influence are available to a very few.
Clients with specific needs are not served. Counselors only
become discouraged trying to understand the access-equipment,
mobility, and Braille needs of blind consumers; learn American
Sign Language and other communicative skills to help deaf
clients; and meet the specific needs of those with brain injury,
orthopedic limitations of all kinds, or mental retardation. It
can't be done effectively, but since the only people losing out
are those requiring rehabilitation and the dedicated
professionals trying to serve them, the disadvantages of such
merger plans are frequently discounted.

The legislative battles that result when these consolidation
plans surface are messy and unpleasant. The members of the
disability community resisting the legislative juggernaut have
little money, power, or influence; so why should legislators
listen to us? We are frequently told that we don't really
understand the situation, that no one intends to damage the
rehabilitation delivery system, that we will experience no
diminution in the quality of the services delivered. They dismiss
the fact that we are the ones who have been on the receiving end
of whatever rehabilitation has been available, and we know what
works and what doesn't. We have learned the hard way that long
chains of command, budget dispersal, and paperwork create chaos
and confusion. We have all heard the stories of what happens when
a counselor doesn't know enough about a disability to insure that
proper services are procured for a client. And many of us can
name the states in which services for the blind have been buried
in much larger agencies for so long that the notion of effective
service delivery would be a joke if human lives weren't being
destroyed by the system.

Despite our best efforts we lost the most recent round of
the separate-agency battle in Texas in early May. Happily, in
North Carolina the blind are still up and fighting and appear to
be holding their own against determined opposition. Wayne Shevlin
chairs the NFB of North Carolina's Legislative Committee. Here is
the way he tells the story of the latest confrontation in North
Carolina:
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I returned home from National Convention in July of 1998 to
find that someone in our state legislature had introduced a bill
to merge our Division of Services for the Blind, Services for the
Deaf, and Vocational Rehabilitation into one generic agency
called the Division of Rehabilitation Services. As Legislative
Chairman of the NFB of North Carolina, I immediately went to work
making calls to people in the organization, encouraging them to
make calls and to write to their legislators, particularly those
on the committee which had introduced this idea. I went as far as
to get a permit to demonstrate in front of the Legislative
Building if necessary.

At that time it turned out not to be necessary. (See Herman
Gruber's article, "North Carolina Agency Survives Surprise from
Legislature" in the November, 1998, issue of the Braille
Monitor.) The bill was passed on from the committee to our State
House of Representatives, and the bill to merge was voted down
fifty-seven to fifty-five. But unfortunately it didn't end there;
in fact, it was just getting started.

While the merger was voted down, a provision was passed to
establish a study commission to look at the feasibility of
merging the Division of Services for the Blind, Services for the
Deaf, and Vocational Rehabilitation. The accounting firm of Price
Waterhouse-Coopers--who better to work with the Blind than an
accounting firm--were hired to do the study. Consumers were to be
included in the study. However, we were told that the merger was
a done deal, and what we thought didn't really matter.
Nevertheless, our state president, Herman Gruber, was asked to
participate in the merger study.

In March of this year the issue began to heat up. I began to
hear all kinds of rumors, including more talk that the merger was
already a done deal. A done deal, eh--I guess they forgot to
consider the National Federation of the Blind of North Carolina.
Herman and I had already been keeping in touch regularly; now it
became daily. We also began having regular meetings with the
North Carolina Council of the Blind, North Carolina Association
of Workers for the Blind, and other groups and people who had no
blindness-field affiliation at all.

On March 24 we held a meeting in Raleigh to plan and inform
people about what was happening. People were also encouraged to
visit their legislators as long as they were in town for the
meeting. We decided to schedule a demonstration in front of the
Legislative Building on April 6. I was asked to set up the
demonstration. I had participated in NAC-Tracking and in a number
of demonstrations held at Washington Seminars through the years,
but I had never organized one before.

I learned very quickly just how many details are involved in
organizing a demonstration, especially one which turned out to be
as big as this one was. We needed to obtain permits from
Legislative Security and the Raleigh Police Department. We had to
find a place for people to gather and for them to park cars and
vans. There were press releases to write and send, slogans and
signs to invent and make, people to notify, and on and on. Peggy
Elliott, Second Vice President of the National Federation of the
Blind, and her secretary Darla Hamilton arrived the day before
the demonstration to help and give us moral support. We met with
them the night they arrived to cover last-minute details.

The big day arrived. The demonstration was to be held at
noon. We were all to gather at the Holiday Inn and walk about
five blocks to the Legislative Building. Only as people began
arriving did we realize the size of the group we were going to
have. By all counts, ours and the media's, we had between four
and five hundred people in attendance. We had people from all
parts of the state: agency employees; AER, NFB, and ACB members;
deaf-blind people, folks in wheel chairs, and members of the
Lions Club in their orange vests. The media were well represented
by our four major local TV stations, reporters from the Raleigh
and Charlotte papers, and several other papers from across the
state. We marched up and down in front of the Legislative
Building for almost two hours with Mrs. Elliott in the thick of
things helping to organize and leading the chanting. A number of
legislators came out to watch and talk to us.

After the smoke had cleared, several of us who had been
recognized as organizers of the opposition movement received
phone calls inviting us to a meeting of the joint Senate and
House Appropriations Committee the next week. Now was the time to
let those with the real power know how we felt, as if the
demonstration hadn't. The first folks in line to speak to the
committee were representatives of the Department of Health and
Human Services (DHHS), the parent agency of the state agency
serving the blind. They presented their study results and their
recommendations, which were--surprise, surprise--that Services
for the Blind, Services for the Deaf, and Vocational
Rehabilitation be merged into a Department of Rehabilitation.
Some of the more interesting things said by the Secretary of DHHS
were "they were trying to help the blind and that we ought to be
grateful" and that "the blind were the only consumers who opposed
the merger." We were also told that a few of the blind had
stirred the rest up.

The next day the consumers had our say. The first people to
speak were two advocates from the deaf community. They were very
much opposed to the merger. Hmmm, what was that about the blind
being the only group opposed? Then we had our chance. Mr. Gruber
was the spokesman for blind consumers and was eloquent. He was
asked whether the blind would be satisfied if we were guaranteed
a voice in deciding the way the merger would be done. Mr.
Gruber's response was, "If the input on planning the merger was
as significant as it had been on the Study Commission, it wasn't
worth much."

Since the committee meeting we have heard many rumors about
what may happen: everything from "it's a done deal" to "the
legislature will wait until the consumers forget and then try to
slip it through." In the end I think they are likely to combine
our school for the blind with the three schools for the deaf but
leave our agency alone. The Secretary of DHHS can merge the
agencies without the backing of the legislature, but I don't
think it is likely. We are continuing to keep in touch and build
support with our legislators to let them know we have not
forgotten and are continuing to keep our plans current. It's not
over yet, and blind North Carolinians are in no danger of
forgetting or of ceasing to keep a watchful eye on those who
think that bigger bureaucracy is better.

I want to extend thanks to all who participated and who have
expressed their support. Thanks especially to our National
Office. Peggy Elliott and Herman Gruber provided excellent advice
and leadership. Thank you to the members of the NFB of North
Carolina, who by their hard work have made my job as legislative
chairman easier. If anyone still wonders why the National
Federation of the Blind, our experience in North Carolina is an
eloquent illustration. Without the commitment, experience, and
momentum of the Federation, we would never have come as far as we
have.
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